This Day In Sports History (May 17th) — David Wells

It was on this day in 1998 that David Wells pitched the 15th perfect game in baseball history. Wells accomplished the feat against the Minnesota Twins in a game played at Yankee stadium.

This was the first regular season perfect game in the storied history of the New York Yankees and the second in team history. Don Larsen pitched a perfect game in the 1956 World Series, which stands as the first perfect game in MLB postseason history. Ironically, both Wells and Larsen attended Point Loma High School in San Diego.

In his autobiography David Wells claims he was hungover the day of the perfect game, as he got drunk the night before at a “Saturday Night Live” cast party. A memorable quote from Wells’ book is “15 men in the history of organized baseball have ever thrown a perfect game… Only one of those men did it half-drunk, with bloodshot eyes, monster breath and a raging, skull-rattling hangover. That would be me.”